Cables Part Deux

Working part time as a lab assistant during my college years, I used to crimp quite a number of CAT-5 cables. My team mates and I would be crimping and laying cables an entire afternoon till late evening whenever there's a full lab maintenance going on or a new lab to be set up. So naturally, I don't really like cables that are not crimped properly.

When I got back to the office last week after my long break, I chance upon a newly laid CCTV co-ax cable which was to be connected to a TV capture card. The odd thing was, it didn't have one of those shiny metal heads. And yes, I did ask loudly on what kind of an idiot will leave such shoddy work. Said idiot came back a week later to finish the job.

Talking about cables, some of you might remember that I bought a third party component cable for my PS2 (it's still in stock on Play-Asia, and it's compatible with the Playstation 3..click here for details). The good news is, it's still working fine, but the not good/not bad news is the PS2 is suffering from a lack of use.

Disappointing isn't it. And there's that Dreamcast sitting in a box in one of my office cabinets. Anyways, if you own a PS3 and an LCD TV, you are better off with a HDMI cable. Play-Asia has a variety of them for sale, ranging from the loosely pack 3rd party (here) ones to the expensive ones such as Monster (here).

I'm beginning to wonder what are the differences (aside from the price) between the two HDMI cables.

Component Cables Are Your PS2's Best Friend...If You Have a LCD TV

If you have a PS2 and a LCD TV and you are still using composite cable, I highly recommend that you ditch that composite cable and get a component cable instead. My component cable arrived through the mail today. I ordered it from an online retailer for a pretty good price of RM 21.19, which is 10 ringgit lesser than the price given to me by a retailer in Damansara.

Installing the component cable was a pretty straightforward affair. I removed the composite cables connecting my PS2 to the splitter and directly connected the PS2 to the Samsung R7 LCD TV with the component cable. The TV end of the component cable had colour coded male connectors that correspond with the female connectors located at the back of the TV.

The first game that I tested with was SSX. This snowboarding game, having the sole distinction of being the only game I'd ever finished on the PS2, had only "okay" graphics with the composite cable. The output from the component cable was sharper, clearer, and I dare say more vivid. I can also see various shades of black, which was good, as I only got a flat output from the composite cable.

The second game was Burnout: Revenge. This game was one of the first games that I played with the R7, and it was probably the awe of playing it on a wide screen that got me raving. In any case, with the composite cable, the game was a virtual smash fest in 2 player mode, as both my brother and I cannot make out what was coming towards us on screen.

The game is still a virtual smash fest with the component cable. The graphics have become clearer, sharper and like SSX, more vivid; and we can finally see what we were ramming our cars into. Burnout never looked better on my LCD TV.

Not convinced? Go try it yourself, after all, the cables are priced just above RM20 and are available at Play-Asia.com (click here)

Cables, Smables, Gables...

I was watching Star Wars Episode V on my LCD TV earlier this evening and I realised that even without the much fancied S-video cable, the picture quality using normal AV cables was pretty good. Sure, there were some scenes whereby the dark side...I mean dark portions were simply too dark but there was nothing a display mode change couldn't solve.

Since S-video cables are rather expensive, a sales man quote RM 100 a piece, I might just pull off purchasing the cable for the time being. However, I'm more concerned about the picture quality coming off from my PS2 using the normal AV cables. The visuals are just okay at best and apparently I need to use composite cables with the PS2 and LCD TV.

Gamers Hideout at Cineleisure, Kota Damansara is selling a 3rd party PS2 composite cable for RM 39 but with all due respect to the owners, the cable looks really "cheap". Even though I don't like sound like I'm judging a book by its cover, the appearance was already a turn off (note to person in-charge of marketing for said 3rd party product). It just goes against one of my personal rules on buying stuff....buy only the item that you are comfortable with (in terms of looks, price, etc.).

On the other hand, Play-Asia sells a composite cable from XCM for RM 70 and the reviews for this product average 5 stars out of 5. Did I mention that the XCM composite cable is multi-console and supports the PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii? Now that's what I call value for money and I'll most likely order it in early February.

Interested? Visit Play-Asia (here) for a look at the specs.